I recently received some interesting material about Mary Kiffmeyer, who is seeking the Republican endorsement to run in House District 16B and unseat Mark Olson (A campaign that can only be described as who can out religious extremism whom).

Kiffmeyer submitted a report for receipts and expenditures from the Kiffmeyer for Secretary of State Committee. To my knowledge, this would indicate one of two things. Either Kiffmeyer planned to run again for Secretary of State or she didn't realize the campaign was over and continued campaigning anyway.

That, however, is not the most important piece of the puzzle. What is even more interesting is that the Kiffmeyer Campaign spent over $400 on a trip to Washington DC in February of 2007. I have yet to determine whether any of this is illegal as the state campaign finance laws I have searched through say little about the subject of post election expenditures (perhaps I am looking in the wrong place), but it seems odd that a defunct Secretary of State Campaign in the state of Minnesota would need to pay its candidate to travel all the way to Washington DC.

On the survey thing, we should try and gather as many of these things as we can. The Shimanski survey is crazy!

Keep up the good work!

Anonymous
On
April 7, 2008 at 10:12 AM

under MN law you must continue to file regular campaign finance reports until the balance of your account goes under some amount, like $50. I believe that you can't actually close it out until the amount is 0. In her case, I think she could contribute the amount to the Republican party or some other political committee that would also then declare it on their filings.

Here's a tip. When you look at these state filings, the most important issue in determining increased activity is whether they RAISED money, not whether they spent it. They HAVE to spend all the money eventually. What they spent it on is sometimes interesting of course, but really there aren't a whole lot of restrictions on that, just that the information be properly disclosed and for the political purpose. To me, a filing that says that a committee has raised no new money and is spending money is probably just a dead committee that's trying to wind down.

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